Kenneth, I was just introduced to your blog. You have addressed this topic beautifully. For a long time I found 2 Ne 25:23 to be a stumbling block, causing me to ask the question how many ‘doifiers’ are enough?

How many more gardens planted and harvested, how many more jars of food to preserve, how many more loaves of bread, how many more children to birth, feed, clothe, nourish, teach, love, guide, educate, watch over, provide and pray for, how many more names to prepare and endow, how much study, fasting, repentance and mighty prayer, etc, until I have done all I can do to be ‘worthy’ enough to appeal to God for His consideration to extend to me his forgiveness and His mercy and grace?

After an exhausting, sleepless night with our 6th baby, and 5 littles ones, still in their pajamas, hungry in the kitchen, countertops stacked with dirty dishes, I fell on my knees in wrung-out weariness and despair calling out to God with a heart broken and broken body and broken will, “Oh Father, I can do this no longer — I give”, as I laid in a sobbing heap! That was the day my entire life began to change. He began His mighty work within, for a place had been opened up within me for Him to enter. And He has never left!

Since stepping onto that path of admitting to God, that I am powerless, that I can do nothing and am nothing without Him, my whole being and outlook has changed. I now know the ‘real’ meaning of the word link “after all we can do” which is so poignantly rehearsed in Alma 24:10-11,

10 And I also thank my God, yea my great God, that he hath granted unto us that we might repent of these things, and also that he hath forgiven us of those our many sins and murders which we have committed, and taken away the guilt from our hearts, through the merits of his Son.
11 And now, since it has been all that we could do, (as we were the most lost of all mankind) to repent of all our sins and the many murders which we have committed, and to get God to take them away from our hearts, for it was all we could do to repent sufficiently before God that he would take away our stain —

and now I live in joy and peace of conscience, ‘daily encircled around in the robe of thy righteousness, O Lord’. In gratitude ~ gwen

24 And again, I say unto the poor, ye who have not and yet have sufficient, that ye remain from day to day; I mean all you who deny the beggar, because ye have not; I would that ye say in your hearts that: I give not because I have not, but if I had I would give.
25 And now, if ye say this in your hearts ye remain guiltless, otherwise ye are condemned; and your condemnation is just for ye covet that which ye have not received.
26 And now, for the sake of these things which I have spoken unto you—that is, for the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before God—I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants.
27 And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.